


And The Jet Plane Lands

by kissoffools



Category: Two of a Kind
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Getting Together, Love Triangles, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/pseuds/kissoffools
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carrie Moore spends sixty-seven days exploring the South American jungle with an overstuffed backpack and a guy named Scott. Kevin Burke spends them pining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Jet Plane Lands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeria/gifts).



> Set after Carrie's trip to South America. Post-series fic.

On the morning that Carrie’s plane lands at O’Hare, Kevin Burke spends ten minutes fiddling with his tie in the mirror.

“Dad, you need to relax. You’re going to give yourself an anxiety attack!” Mary-Kate says from somewhere behind him, and he jumps, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

“How long have you been sitting there?” he asks. He undoes the knot and starts over.

“Long enough that it’s almost turning into breakfast and a show,” she says, spearing a bite of waffle with her fork. “Look, you’re just going to pick her up at the airport - you’re not proposing. You don’t need to freak out about it.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” he says. “But after what happened before she went away, and then she’s sent postcards to both you and your sister and nothing to me, I just…” He smoothes his tie flat against his chest before turning around to face her. “Why am I talking to you about this?”

“Because you haven’t shut up about Carrie for three months,” Ashley says, pushing through the kitchen door into the living room. She has a glass of orange juice in one hand and a muffin in the other, and if she’s going to sit down on the couch and _also_ start psychoanalyzing him, he really needs to learn to tell this kind of stuff to Matt instead. “It’s like normal breakfast conversation now. ‘Do you think Carrie’s made it to Rio de Janeiro yet? I hope she remembered to pack sunscreen. Did she sound like she’s having a good time? She didn’t say anything about extending her trip, did she?’ You aren’t subtle. It’s a really good thing you never tried to be a spy, Dad.“ 

Mary-Kate laughs and she and Ashley high-five, and okay, Kevin _definitely_ needs more friends.

“Hilarious,” he says, hoping his cheeks haven’t gone pink. He decides to stop futzing with his outfit - he’s looked the same for the entire year Carrie’s known him. A couple wrinkles here and there won’t change much now. He grabs his car keys from the table. “Listen, Paul’s downstairs if you need anything, and I’m only going to be gone an hour or so. We made it through the whole summer without this place blowing up - don’t destroy it all now, all right?”

He’s almost on the front stoop when he pauses and, against his better judgment, turns around. “How do I look?” he asks, and if the nerves aren’t visible on his face, they’re definitely evident in his voice.

The smiles on the girls’ faces help a little, though.

“You look great,” Ashley tells him, and Mary-Kate tilts her head affectionately.

“Go bring her home, Dad.”

Kevin feels a swell of confidence. “I will,” he promises, and heads out the door.

***

By the time Kevin reaches Carrie’s gate and stares up at the arrivals board, he’s actually not so nervous, after all.

That may have something to do with the valium he popped once he was in the car, but he’s pretending that didn’t happen.

Because, really, he needs to keep his expectations low. The two of them weren’t _anything_ when Carrie left, and they haven’t talked all summer. She’s been busy backpacking through the jungle, enjoying her trip of adventure and self-exploration, and he’s been teaching a summer class. Nothing’s going to be different, because they haven’t done anything to make it different. They may have kissed at the airport, but it was a quick, impulsive thing. Two friends saying goodbye, practically. One kiss doesn’t mean anything. 

God, he hopes it meant something.

And then the attendant announces the arrival of Flight 062 from São Paulo, and Kevin feels his heart leap into his throat. He’s on his feet right away, clutching the bouquet of daisies he’d picked up at the grocery store on the way so tight he’s almost afraid they’ll snap in half. He feels jittery and his eyes scan the arriving crowd eagerly, excited to see her face. Nothing may be different… but god, how Kevin wants it to be.

And then, he sees her. Backpack slung over one shoulder, an excited spring in her step… and her right hand clutching someone’s left.

Kevin’s whole world lurches off-kilter as her face splits into a grin when she sees him. She pushes her way through the crowd towards him, tugging her mystery man along with her.

“Kevin!” she cries, flinging her arms around his neck.

“Hi, Carrie,” he murmurs, and he tries so, so hard not to sound like all his hopes are crashing down around him.

He’s not sure how successful he is.

But she beams at him as she pulls back, adjusting the strap of her backpack. “Oh my god, I didn’t know you were coming to pick me up! It’s so good to see you!” Her eyes drop down to the flowers still clutched in Kevin’s hand, and she raises her eyebrows. “Are those for me?”

Kevin blinks at them for a moment, and then practically shoves them into her arms. “Yeah! Yeah, you know. They’re from the girls. Welcome home, and all.”

Her fond little smile as she looks down at them makes Kevin want to kick something. “That’s so sweet,” she says. “Where are they?”

“Back at the house,” Kevin says, and more than anything, he’s wishing he’d brought them along. Anything to take the attention off himself right now. He clears his throat, his eyes finally moving to the guy standing just behind Carrie. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh my god, Scott!” she cries, turning back to him and grabbing his hand again, tugging him forward. “Kevin, this is Scott. You met him before, remember? The day we left.”

“¡Hola!” Scott says, sticking out his hand to shake. “Good to see you again.” Kevin feels something inside him shrivel up as he clasps Scott’s hand in his own.

“Hola to you too,” Kevin says, a little thrown. He only vaguely remembers meeting Scott – a classmate of Carrie’s from last year, if his memory serves him correctly – but he’s pretty sure the guy isn’t Hispanic. He’s not sure what’s up with the overenthusiastic Spanish. And what’s more, the top few buttons on his shirt are hanging open, and Kevin can see a little statue of Christ the Redeemer around the guy’s neck.

 _This_ is the guy Carrie wants to hold hands with?

Kevin shoves his hands back into his pockets. He doesn’t want to ask – the last thing he wants is to come off over-invested or, god forbid, needy – but the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. “So are you two…?”

“Kind of!” Carrie says brightly, wrapping her arm around Scott’s. “You know how it is – you spend two months hiking through the jungle with someone, something’s bound to happen.”

“And I already know what she looks like without makeup, so no surprises there!” Scott cracks. 

Kevin laughs along with them both, but he decides resolutely that he doesn’t like him. “Just wait until you try her cooking – if you don’t have a big bottle of Tums on you, you should probably pick one up.”

“Shut up!” Carrie says with a laugh, smacking Kevin’s chest. She gestures towards the parking lot, and Scott slings an arm around her shoulders as they set off towards the car. She turns back to Kevin, grinning at him over her shoulder. “God, you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Neither have you,” Kevin says, trailing along behind them both.

Maybe that kiss didn’t mean anything, after all.

***

The girls are thrilled to see Carrie, and the three of them chatter excitedly as Carrie sweeps through the house, catching up on stories about Rio and the jungle and the markets and the Pacific coast. Scott joins in right away, throwing around over-accented Spanish phrases and making Mary-Kate and Ashley laugh at a story about tumbling down a ravine in a rainstorm, and the quizzical looks that were on their faces when Scott first showed up on Carrie’s arm vanish easily. Carrie greets Paul warmly in the kitchen, and everyone descends down into the basement in a flurry of laughter and chatter. Kevin’s left alone in his living room, a little stunned.

He never thought the familiar girlish gabbing between his daughters and their babysitter would make his chest ache.

“Is that Carrie?”

Matt jogs down the stairs, a wide grin on his face, and Kevin flops down on the couch, defeated. “She just got back.”

“So?” Matt asks, sitting down and jostling Kevin’s side eagerly. “What happened when you picked her up? Am I going to have to take the girls out for pizza to keep them from hearing you two boinking like bunnies?”

“I don’t think there’s much danger of that,” Kevin says heavily. “She brought someone home with her.”

“Someone…” Matt pauses, and Kevin can practically see the wheels turning in his head, trying to put two and two together. Then his face splits into another grin. “Like a hot friend? Because I think you and I need to set some ground rules if you’re thinking some kind of foursome action.”

“Wh – you’re my brother, what’s wrong with you?” Kevin says, tossing a disgusted glance in Matt’s direction. Then he sighs. “She brought home a _guy_.”

Matt raises his eyebrows. “Is he _here_?”

“Downstairs, with the girls and Carrie. And Paul, actually.”

“Man,” Matt says slowly. “Did you guys –”

“Nope.”

“She didn’t even –“

“Nope.”

“So it’s like it never –“

“Pretty much.”

“Man,” Matt says again. “That sucks.”

Kevin sighs, the loud burst of laughter bubbling up from the basement clenching at his heart again. “You’re telling me.”

“I mean, you spent, what, _weeks_ torturing yourself over this,” Matt says. “I got it at first, but you got really annoying after awhile. There’s only so many ways to go over the ‘she’s too young for me/she’s my kids’ babysitter/I was her teacher/is this wrong?’ debate. Boring.”

“You aren’t exactly helping right now, you know.”

“I’m just saying!” Matt raises his hands, palms open, in self-defense. “You probably should have figured out if she even liked you before you spent a month agonizing over the whole thing. Would’ve saved you some time.”

Kevin shoots Matt a look. “Don’t you have somewhere to be that isn’t here?”

Matt shrugs, getting to his feet again. “Fine, fine. You try to help a guy out…”

Once Matt is safely out of the room, Kevin drops his head into his hands. The worst part of the whole thing is that Matt’s actually _right_. There had been weeks of back-and-forth and over-analyzing and worrying before he finally decided that this was worth it. That Carrie – him and Carrie – would be worth the risk.

Apparently, she’d decided otherwise.

He’s just about to go upstairs and hang up his tie in defeat when he hears two sets of footsteps clattering up the basement steps. He’s sure it’s the girls, likely running to him to tell him about the food in Valencia or to, god forbid, ask him to spend Christmas in Santiago. That wouldn’t surprise him – Mary-Kate and Ashley look up to Carrie like a big sister, and he’s bought them things on her influence more than once in the past year. He tries to compose a quick mental Why Christmas Is Better In Chicago list, just in case.

But when the basement door bursts open it’s Carrie and Scott standing there, not the twins, and Kevin feels himself deflate a little when Scott wraps an arm around Carrie’s waist and pulls her to his chest.

“Hey, Kevin?” Carrie says, twisting around to face him.

Seriously, why him? _Why_ did he have to go and fall for the baby-sitter? Life is not a porno – how on earth had he thought that would be a good idea?

“Yeah?” He hopes the smile on his face doesn’t look as forced as it feels.

“Listen, is it okay if Scott stays for a few days?” she asks. “He’s still trying to work out something with his old roommates. Apparently they liked the guy who subletted Scott’s room so much that they want to keep him for the rest of the year.”

Kevin picks up a magazine from the coffee table. “Why are you asking me?” he asks, thumbing through it. “It’s your apartment. If you want him there, he can stay.”

Carrie’s face falls just a little, the eager expression fading. She shrugs. “I thought it would be nice to ask,” she says. “I mean, it’s still your house.”

“It’s fine,” Kevin says. He’d hoped – he’d really, really hoped – that Scott would only be staying the morning. He figured he’d hang around a little, maybe have some lunch and then go home to somewhere that isn’t here with Kevin’s family. Somewhere far, far away, ideally.

Kevin’s own basement isn’t far enough away for his liking – not by a long shot. But what’s he going to do? 

“Man, thank you, so much,” Scott says. He extricates himself from being wrapped around Carrie and crosses the living room, reaching out to fist-bump Kevin. Kevin does so, not nearly as casually as he could have hoped, and he sees Carrie’s lips turn up into a little smile over Scott’s shoulder.

“Seriously, you don’t even know,” Scott continues. “Coming home from a continent where no one has very much and finding out your roommates want to kick you out? It feels like… like South America changed me, man. Like I’m one of them now. You know? I can understand them on a whole new level. There, they deal in the currency of passion and love for one another, and that’s all they need. I only wish we were so lucky.”

If Kevin hadn’t been trying not to be a complete dick, he’s positive his eyes would roll right out of his head. “I’m pretty sure they buy their TVs with dollars and pesos, just like the rest of the world,” he says. Behind Scott, Carrie’s hand raises to her mouth to block out a grin. 

Scott nods solemnly. “And the Paraguayan guarani.” He rolls his r’s in an exaggerated way, and somehow, Kevin isn’t so surprised that Scott’s roommates replaced him the second he moved out for the summer.

“You can stay til you’re back on your feet,” Kevin says, and Scott claps his shoulder.

“Qué suave!” Scott says with a grin.

“Yeah, uh huh,” Kevin agrees. “Uh, qué suave.”

“Come on, babe,” Scott says, turning back to Carrie. “Let’s see if our suitcases still smell like that warm Chilean air.”

He takes her hand and tugs her down the stairs again. When they’re safely out of earshot, Kevin can’t help but breathe out a noise of disbelief. What, two months in South America and this guy turns into some kind of spiritually-changed, pretentious fool?

What the hell is Carrie _doing_ with him?

***

If Kevin thought one conversation with Scott was bad, it’s nothing compared to the rest of the day.

Scott and Carrie spend most of the afternoon on the main floor with Mary-Kate, Ashley and Matt, regaling them all with stories of mud huts and soccer games and street parties. Or, at least, Scott does. Carrie sits beside him the whole time, enthusiastic at first, but the longer the conversation goes, the more she seems to fade. After several hours she isn’t animated at all, has completely given up trying to get a word in edgewise around Scott’s rambling and philosophizing, and leans back against the couch, listening with a slightly defeated look on her face. 

From across the room, at his desk where he’s setting up his syllabus for this year’s classes, Kevin notices.

And it makes him wonder.

The problem is, there’s no room to talk to Carrie, no chance to pull her aside and ask if everything’s okay. Scott sticks with her the entire day, getting up and following her when she goes to the kitchen for a snack or down to the basement to grab something to show the twins. He’s like a misguided, over-enthusiastic puppy dog, and the longer Kevin’s around him, the more he wants to try to re-home him.

By the time dinner rolls around, Carrie perks up a little. Kevin’s made lasagna, Carrie’s favourite, as a welcome-home dish, and she teases him about the sauce and he challenges her to try and do better, with all her microwaving skills. It feels like she never left, like they’ve been doing this every day over the summer, and by the time dessert is cleared away, Carrie’s grinning and in a great mood again. Kevin’s a little proud of himself, pleased he was able to cheer her up and get her smiling.

But then Scott and Carrie disappear after dessert, giggling and practically tumbling down the stairs to the basement together, and Kevin’s fun feelings from dinner fade away.

“That’s rough, Dad,” Mary-Kate says, looking after the two of them as she helps him clear the table.

Kevin shrugs, giving his girls a smile. “Nah, it’s fine.” They shouldn’t have to see their dad crushed.

“It’s not fine!” Ashley says, leaning against the counter. “She kissed you and started dating someone else! It’s like when Jared called me from New York and told me he kissed some neighbor of his dad’s. I know how you feel.” She pats his arm sympathetically. “I know that pain.”

“Somehow I’ll get past the betrayal,” Kevin says, and he pats her hand a little mockingly. 

“I believe in you, Dad.”

The girls disappear for the rest of the evening, hidden away upstairs to talk to their friends on the phone or play around online. Carrie and Scott stay in the basement, and Kevin finishes his syllabus, praying that he’s soundproofed the basement as well as he’d thought.

Before bed, Kevin moves through the house, turning off lights and checking doors. He pauses in the kitchen to load the last of the dishes into the dishwasher, and he’s just about ready to head upstairs to bed when Carrie appears in the kitchen doorway.

“Hey,” she says with a smile, leaning against the doorframe. She’s in an oversized plaid shirt and a pair of boxers, and Kevin _really_ doesn’t want to think about where she got either of those. “You need help there?”

Kevin sets the last plate into the dishwasher, closing it and straightening up again. The rest of the house is quiet, with the girls and Matt already upstairs, and the only light in the room comes from a small pot light above the sink. “I’m fine – it’s pretty much done. But thanks.”

She crosses into the kitchen, leaning against the counter. “Dinner was great, you know,” she says. “For all I tease you about the spices in your pasta sauce, I really like it.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I know that mockery is a form of flattery with you.”

“It’s just how we do things,” she says with a grin. “And listen, don’t take Scott’s comment about culinary acclimation seriously. I wasn’t expecting to come home to Brazilian food.”

“Good, because I don’t think I could cook that.”

“I bet you could,” she says sincerely, looking up at him. Kevin feels himself flush.

He knows that he should move past her, wish her goodnight and head up the stairs to bed. He knows that nothing good can possibly come from nighttime talks in the semi-darkness. But instead, he leans against the counter in front of her, forearms on the formica. 

“How long have you two been together?” 

And there’s a look on Carrie’s face, just for a second, so quickly that Kevin can’t pick up on what it means before it vanishes. It’s replaced with a cheery smile. “About a month,” Carrie says. “We were just friends for awhile, just having fun travelling together. But when you’ve been through something life-changing with someone like that… it’s just easy to gravitate towards the person who changed with you, you know?”

Kevin nods, and there must be something on his face because Carrie starts again.

“What?” she asks.

“What?”

“What’s that look?”

“What look!”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Kevin, you’re so transparent. You don’t like him!”

“I like Scott just fine!”

She tilts her head skeptically, and he trips over his words a little, scrambling to defend himself. “I _do_!” he repeats.

“You haven’t asked him one thing about himself since you picked us up at the airport.”

“I didn’t need to, because he spent all day today telling us everything we could possibly want to know!”

“He’s not that bad.”

“The guy has a statue of Christ the Redeemer on a chain around his neck and thinks two months in South America makes him one of them!”

“Oh, you are infuriating!” she groans, smacking a hand on the counter. “He’s excited about his trip! He just wants to tell everyone about the stuff he did!”

“Don’t you mean the stuff you both did?”

And now Carrie’s fidgeting a little, her gaze dropping as she picks at her nails. “I – yeah, of course. The stuff we both did.”

Kevin raises his eyebrows. “What does that mean?” She’s silent, and he leans in a little closer. “Carrie?”

She shrugs, eyes still firmly downcast. “It’s nothing.”

“Carrie.”

He’s not sure if he’s going to be able to get it out of her, whatever she’s keeping from him, and he’s just about to start formulating a plan to investigate via his sneaky preteen daughters when she sighs. “I probably shouldn’t have agreed to travel with him.”

Something in Kevin bristles. “Why?” he asked. “Did he… do something to you?”

“No!” she cries, eyes on him again, shaking her head. “No, of course not. He’s a good guy, and we had fun. We just… I don’t know.” She shrugs. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized we were doing everything _he_ wanted to do. Kayaking on the Maule river, eating lobster in Juàn Fernandez… it was all his choice. By the time I realized he never actually _asked_ me what I wanted to do, we were on the plane home.”

Kevin furrows his brow, confused. “I thought you wanted to do that kind of stuff.”

“I did!” Carrie says. “He just never checked to make sure.”

Kevin eyes her, trying to reconcile this information with the bits and pieces he’d seen of Carrie and Scott throughout the day. They seemed to have fun, to enjoy each other’s company, her hand on his arm or his wrapped around her waist as if it had become second nature. They’d practically been the picture of contentment. 

But now, standing here in the dim kitchen light across from Carrie, none of it makes sense.

“Then why is he here?” Kevin asks finally. “If you’re not happy with him?”

Carrie pauses, again, and when she speaks, Kevin gets the sense that she’s choosing every one of her words carefully. “It’s scary, being in a foreign country alone,” she says. “Any country. Way scarier than I thought it would be, when I bought my ticket. And having Scott there… that made it all so much less lonely.” She pauses, pressing her lips together. “I didn’t want to come back and feel lonely again.”

“Oh,” Kevin says quietly. He drops his gaze to the counter, to the hands he has clasped together in front of him. _But I’m right here,_ he wants to say. Wants to shout it, wants to grab her and repeat it over and over until she understands. _How could you possibly think you’d be lonely?_

And then –

“Why?” she asks.

He lifts his eyes again, and they settle right on hers. His throat is dry.

“What?”

“Why do you want to know about Scott and me?”

“I –” Kevin feels as if he can barely breathe. _Say it,_ he urges himself. _Tell her._ “I’m your friend, aren’t I? Can’t a friend be curious?”

Carrie studies him for a moment, the dim light shadowing her eyes so he can’t read them as well as he usually can. She licks her lips as she hesitates, almost as if she’s trying to decide whether or not to speak.

Then, finally, “Are we friends?”

God, Kevin wants to reach out and touch her. “Of course,” he says. He wants to say more, _so_ much more, but Scott is right downstairs. Scott, who’s waiting for Carrie to come back down, to curl up with her and hold on to any South American magic they’ve captured just a little longer. Scott, the one that makes her feel loved.

How can he wreck that for her, when she hadn’t thought he’d be able to make her feel that same thing? 

“Friends,” she repeats.

Kevin ignores the squeeze in his chest and tries to give her his most sincere grin. “Why wouldn’t we be?” 

And with that, the spell is broken. Carrie straightens up and gives him a jovial smile, backing away a little from the counter. “Well, good,” she says. “I’d hate for my trip to have changed anything.”

Kevin blinks at her, still a little dazed. “No,” he says finally. “Nothing’s changed at all.”

“Good,” Carrie repeats. She crosses the room, leaning against the doorframe once more as she turns back to look at him. “Sleep well, Kevin.”

“Night, Carrie.”

And once Carrie’s gone, once he hears the door to the basement softly click shut, Kevin lets out a sigh, his head falling into his hands.

He isn’t sure, but he feels as if he may have just made the wrong move.

***

“He’s wearing a _blanket_ , Eddie. With a freaking hole cut out of the middle. Who wears that in Chicago? In September?!”

When Eddie moved away, he’d given Kevin explicit instructions: share every detail of his dating woes, no exceptions. And the dating upsides, too, but Eddie had cackled and smacked Kevin’s gut and cracked, “But there aren’t many of those, are there?” 

So far, unfortunately, Eddie had been right.

“Seriously, Eddie,” Kevin says into the phone, running a hand through his hair. Carrie and Scott are out in the backyard, going over textbook lists for school, so he doesn’t feel too bad for whining a little to his best friend. “The guy is out in my backyard right now with a straw hat on. A straw hat, a blanket, leather freaking boots and these big baggy pants that look kind of like they belonged to MC Hammer.”

“Bombachas,” Ashley pipes up from behind him, and Kevin practically jumps out of his skin.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks, covering the receiver with his palm and turning around to talk to his daughter.

“Scott’s pants are called _bombachas_. And he's wearing a poncho, not a blanket."

“I think I need to monitor my internet more closely,” Kevin says into the phone. “I’ll call you back, buddy.”

Once he hangs up, Ashley drops down onto the couch, tucking her legs up beneath her. “I didn’t look them up; Scott told me about them after breakfast. They’re traditional southern Brazilian cowboy attire. He said that wearing them makes him feel closer to his travelling experience. You know, Dad, you’re not being very culturally sensitive.”

“And I’m sure the country of Brazil really appreciated watching an American walk around in them.”

“Why are you so bitter?” Mary-Kate asks, jogging down the stairs. “You’re acting like a baby.”

“I’m not bitter!”

“You kind of are,” Ashley points out, and Kevin flushes.

“I just don’t like that guy,” he mutters.

“Listen, Dad,” Mary-Kate says. “It sucks when you like somebody and they don’t like you back. I get that.”

“And it’s even harder when you have to see them with someone else,” Ashley adds. “Like when I had to see Taylor with his girlfriend. It broke my _heart_.”

“But did Ashley go around bad-mouthing Taylor’s girlfriend?” Mary-Kate says.

“A little,” Kevin points out.

“I did not!”

“The point is,” Mary-Kate says firmly, “you’re not thirteen, Dad. Don’t act like it.”

“Let her be happy.”

Kevin pauses for a moment, trying to fight back the creeping feeling of shame at being lectured by his preteen daughters. The two are definitely too nosy for their own good, he thinks. 

The problem is… he thinks they may have a point.

“You think she’s happy?” Kevin asks slowly.

“Dad…” Mary-Kate starts, exchanging a quick glance with Ashley. “We liked the idea of you and Carrie together. We thought she was really good for you.”

“But maybe… maybe it’s time to let her go.”

Kevin sighs in defeat, dropping down onto the couch beside Ashley. “I like her, you know.”

Ashley pats his knee, resting her head on his shoulder. She hasn’t done that in ages, not since she was smaller and he was still the one fixing all of her problems, and it brings a little smile to his face. Maybe this – his family – is really all he needs.

“I know, Dad.”

But then the phone on the coffee table rings, and Ashley knocks him aside as she dives for it. But Mary-Kate’s quicker, snatching the phone right before she can grab it, and ignores Ashley’s cry of protest with a grin.

“Hello?” Then Mary-Kate rolls her eyes and holds the phone away from her ear. “It’s Jared.”

“Oh my god, what does _he_ want?!” Ashley cries, grabbing back the phone and raising it to her ear. “I thought I told you not to call me when you got back from kissing all the girls in New York City.” She stands and takes the phone upstairs with her, and Mary-Kate rolls her eyes again, wandering off into the kitchen.

And Kevin is left all alone on the couch, staring after them.

Maybe he needs a little more than family, after all.

***

When the doorbell rings shortly after four, Kevin darts around frantically. He fiddles with his cuffs and runs his fingers through his hair, little motions to appease his nerves and delay the inevitable. As he strides to the door, he becomes overwhelmed with relief that he’s home alone.

He has a funny feeling that most people in his life wouldn’t be too pleased with his decisions at that moment.

“Nancy!” he says, a little too loudly, as he pulls open the door. His ex-girlfriend is fussing with her hair and adjusting the straps of her dress when she sees him, and her hands immediately fall to her sides. The anxious look on her face twists into an awkward smile, and she steps inside to hug him.

“Hey, Kevin,” she says. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know. Summer off, kids running around, driving me crazy.” He wonders if his smile looks forced. He’d thought this would be the answer – a beautiful woman, one whose company he used to enjoy, more or less. Perfect to take his mind off his problems.

Off Carrie.

As he looks at her now, though, he sees the apprehension in her eyes. That look seems to match the heavy stone in his stomach, and he’s starting to wonder if he’s made a very, very big mistake.

But before he can say anything else, before he can decide if he’s inviting her in or going to spend the next ten minutes apologizing for his impulses, there’s a clatter behind him. He turns, and there’s Carrie, crossing from the kitchen into the living room with a large shopping bag as the door swings shut behind her.

When she sees them, she stops short.

“Nancy,” Carrie says. She blinks, dazed, almost as if she can’t quite process the sight of Kevin and Nancy standing before her.

“Hi, Carrie,” Nancy says, and Kevin can see her fidgeting with her rings on her right hand. That’s never a good sign, not with her. “How was your trip?”

“Fine,” Carrie says, but she isn’t looking at Nancy anymore. Her gaze has settled right on Kevin, eyes boring right into his own, and he feels his stomach drop out. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look this devastated.

“Are you guys…” she swallows, as if she’s trying to force the words out.

And all Kevin can think of to say is, “Where’s Scott?”

Because Carrie had gone out with Scott. He’d heard them, after lunch, talking about making plans to go to the university’s bookstore and pick up everything they’d need for the new semester. They’d left together, Scott’s arm slung over her shoulders. And now Carrie’s in front of him, bookstore bag clutched in her hand… but no Scott at her side.

And Kevin doesn’t even want to dare to wonder what that might mean.

“Gone,” Carrie says softly, and Kevin’s head spins a little.

“Where –”

“He got into this big fight with the barista at the Starbucks on campus about coffee beans and the fair trade market, and he started throwing all these over-enunciated Spanish words around, and I just…” She pauses, licking her lips. “He’s too much. I don’t want to be with someone who makes me feel like I’m wrong for being happy to be home.”

The explanation barely registers in Kevin’s mind. All he hears is _gone_ , _gone_ , _gone_ , like an echo, over and over, and he feels a wave of nausea crash over him. 

Of all the possibilities, of all the answers she could have given, the last thing he’s expecting is this one.

“Sorry to hear that,” Nancy says awkwardly, behind Kevin, and Carrie blinks at them both again.

“Oh, god,” she says quickly, two pink dots of colour appearing on her cheeks. “This is some big reconciliation for you, and I’m totally in the way. God. I’m just – yeah, I’m going to go. Sorry. Sorry.” She spins and almost stumbles through to the kitchen.

“Carrie!” Kevin calls, taking a couple steps across the room. But a moment later, he hears the back door slam shut. He stares after her for a few moments, brain firing rapidly, trying to process. Trying to figure out what’s just happened.

When he turns back to face Nancy, she’s eyeing him shrewdly.

“You didn’t invite me over today to get back together, did you,” she says. It's not a question, not really, and Kevin feels his stomach sink further.

He opens and closes his mouth at her, trying to come up with something to say that doesn’t make him sound like a giant heel. Finally, Nancy sighs and takes a step backwards, opening the front door again.

“You’re an idiot if you’ve been in love with her this long and you’re trying to use me to forget that, you know,” she says, and Kevin practically swallows his tongue in surprise.

“I – what?”

“What, you think I didn’t notice?” she rolls her eyes. “The both of you can barely keep your eyes off each other. And you might be my ex, but she’s been my friend for years,” Nancy says. “Don’t mess her up too, okay?”

“I messed you up?”

“You broke up with me in a restaurant in the least considerate way ever,” she says drily, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face. Whether it’s laughter or pity she’s trying to conceal, Kevin isn’t sure, but he’s grateful for either one. She isn’t hitting him with her purse or throwing his potted plants at his head, which he sort of deserves, so he’s considering that a win.

He should probably look into the cost of another replacement mirror for his car, though. Just in case. 

“I am sorry about that,” he tells her, and he means it.

“I know,” Nancy says, nodding, and then she points firmly at him. “Just don’t hurt her. If you do, I’m hurting way more than your car mirror.”

And then she’s gone.

And Kevin’s left alone, once again, with absolutely no idea how to fix his mistakes.

***

Kevin spends the next few hours pacing. He’s no stranger to the anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it feels worse this time. Stronger, somehow. Everything with Carrie has been so up and down for the past few days – hell, for the past few months – but now, finally, it feels like it’s come to an end.

He feels like he’s crashed and burned. And that’s not a nice feeling.

He knocks on the door to the basement several times throughout the day, half expecting her to have come home and slipped inside through her private entrance. Hell, there’s no evidence that she _hasn’t_ done that. Just because she isn’t answering his knocks doesn’t mean she isn’t home. She could be flat out ignoring them. She could very well be packing right now, intending to take off and never see him again. If she wants nothing to do with him anymore, he won’t be surprised. He’s kind of messed things up a lot.

He wraps up a plate of salmon and caprese salad after dinner, though, and slides it into the fridge. Just in case.

Kevin’s about ready to turn off the light above the sink and trudge upstairs bed, defeated, when he hears the kitchen door open behind him.

“I don’t want you to date Nancy.”

She looks windswept, as if she’s been outside this whole time, her hair wild and sticking up in the back. Her cheeks are tinged pink, and Kevin can’t tell if that’s because of the cool fall air or the tears she might have been hastily brushing away.

She’s a mess, Kevin thinks. And she’s beautiful.

“I’m… not dating Nancy,” Kevin says simply. He crossed the kitchen towards her, but stops a few feet shy. She looks unpredictable, very _Carrie_ , and he doesn’t want to get too close. She isn’t someone who appreciates having her space invaded – he’s seen that one firsthand.

She blinks at him. “Oh,” she says, and it hangs in the air for almost a full minute as they take each other in. Kevin isn’t sure what’s going on, isn’t sure what else she feels she has to say… but he wants to find out. Badly.

But when she stays quiet, apparently unwilling to offer up anything that’s on her mind, Kevin gestures to the table. “Do you… want to sit?”

And that breaks the floodgates.

“I spent two months freaking out over you, you know,” Carrie says, dropping into a chair. “Two months! I don’t think I’ve _ever_ freaked out over another person for that long. Especially not someone I’ve never even slept with before. But you and your A-grades and your last-minute airport visits, like we were in some freaking _movie_ or something, you got all up in my head and drove me crazy! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be driven that crazy by someone who isn’t even in front of you?”

Kevin bites back a smile, sitting down as well. “I have some sort of idea.”

“And the more I couldn’t get you out of my head, the more it freaked me out, you know? And Scott was there, and he was fun, and it…” She huffs, the hairs on her forehead fluffing up a little. “Vacation romances _so_ don’t look good in the harsh light of day.”

“You did pick… quite the character.”

“God, listen to you! ‘Quite the character’. I should be rolling my eyes at you and calling you Grandpa or something, not sitting here thinking how freaking cute it is when you say weird crap like that.”

Kevin can’t help but flush a little, pleased. She thinks he’s cute.

He’ll take cute, that’s for sure. Especially against her other alternative.

“Please don’t call me Grandpa,” he says, groaning a little.

“Whatever.” She waves it off. “Point is, you kiss me at the airport, and my brain spends two months going haywire. That’s just not fair.”

“Is this the part where I point out that _you_ kissed _me_?” he says.

She groans, dropping her head forwards to rest on the table. “You are so _annoying_.”

“Why didn’t you write me when you were away?”

And that’s it. There it is, really, the question he’s been dying to ask. Every letter that came for the girls made him ache, tortured him a little as they charted her progress across South America and told him all about the amazing time she was having. A dozen postcards in their mailbox from Carrie, sunny photos with _Wish you were here!_ scrawled across the front, all for his daughters.

Not one word of her trip was for him.

She raises her head slowly, wisps of hair sticking out every which way, and the look on her face is serious. “Because I was trying to spend all summer convincing myself I wasn’t in love with my teacher.”

Kevin’s mouth goes dry. That dizzy feeling from the airport is back, the one that clenched his heart and sent him buzzing, but he doesn’t mind. It’s thrilling. It’s the most alive he’s felt in god knows how long, and like hell is he going to give that up.

“Did it work?”

She breathes out a laugh, gesturing to herself. “Does it look like it worked?”

He’s pretty sure his heart is doing a tap-dance across his chest.

“It’s a good thing I’m not your teacher anymore, then,” he says quietly, a little smile tugging at his lips. The grin that unfurls across her own sends his stomach into backflips.

“A very good thing.”

And then she’s leaning forward, lifting herself just out of her seat enough to reach across the table and kiss him. He meets her halfway, his hand sliding around to cup the back of her neck and keep her close. It’s deeper than the kiss at the airport, filled with more build-up and resolution, full of an entire summer’s worth of longing. He wants to pull her even closer, lift her up onto the table and press her into his chest, anything to convince him that this is _real_ , this is _happening_.

Finally.

But she giggles a little and he pulls back, nudging his nose against hers. “What?” he asks softly.

“I mean, you can maybe pretend to be my teacher a _little_ ,” she says, her suggestive smirk like the cat that caught the canary, and he laughs, long and loud.

When he’s caught his breath again, he leans in, pressing their foreheads together. One of his hands runs gently up and down her back, fingertips learning, exploring in ways he’d never dared hope for until now.

“You drive me crazy,” she says, and he chuckles again.

“Yeah, well, you give me a headache.”

“I do?”

He leans in to brush their lips together again, playfully. “You’re lucky I think you’re worth it.”

The grin in her eyes is wicked. “Oh, Professor Burke,” she says teasingly. “I know I am.”

“Lucky, or worth it?” he breathes, ghosting his lips over hers, and she hums against him with a little smile.

“Both.”

 

_end._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, celeria! Two of a Kind certainly wasn't a fandom I was ever expecting to write in, let alone to actually offer for Yuletide, but when it showed up on the nominated fandoms list, I couldn't resist. I was thrilled to get matched to your request, and it was a lot of fun exploring Kevin and Carrie's relationship and envisioning how things might have gone after the show's finale. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thanks a ton to K and S for the beta and the encouragement. You guys are the best.


End file.
